K12 Headlines

4/22/2014

Beth Schiavino-Narvaez, a top administrator in Maryland's Montgomery County school system, has been named as Hartford's next superintendent. She is expected to succeed Superintendent Christina Kishimoto on July 1.

Florida taxpayers have invested more than $27 billion to reduce class sizes with the expectation that smaller class sizes will result in improved student achievement. They have little to show for their investment.

Although districts across New York will be asking voters to approve budgets with tax hikes, the state will send rebate checks to most property owners. The rebates will be paid only in districts that keep tax increases below a state-set tax cap of nearly 2 percent. Approximately 94 percent will stay under the cap.

Vision Quest Community School, a new teacher-led Rochester elementary school in New York, is being planned and created by a coalition of parents and teachers. Their proposal is for an arts-rich curriculum emphasizing active learning in long school days and providing a transition to the School of the Arts.

After reviewing graduation rates, Campbell County administrators realized a good number of students who were held back in elementary or middle school took the opportunity to legally leave school after they came of age. Plans to increase the graduation rate include a new junior high summer school program and high school credit classes at the middle school level.

4/21/2014

Cree, Inc. introduced the LS Series linear LED luminaire powered by Cree TrueWhite Technology, designed to replace the fluorescent strip, wrap and industrial fixtures currently installed in North America.

Years after federal stimulus dollars funded a Maine Forest Service project to heat with local wood products, schools and other facilities report they have slashed energy bills in half while supporting jobs in the state’s struggling timber industry.

If expanding the guest list to include Michelle Obama at graduation for high school students in the Kansas capital city means fewer seats for friends and family, some students and their parents would prefer the first lady not attend.

Jane Brittell, the principal at Lorena Falasco Elementary School in Los Banos, a town about 35 miles north of Mendota, says she's worried the drought will force families to leave and pull their kids out of school.

The four charter school proposals approved by Secretary of Education Mark Murphy and the State Board of Education are: Freire Charter School, Delaware STEM Academy, Great Oaks Charter School and the Mapleton Charter School at Whitehall.

City charter schools scored a pair of legal victories this week as the teachers union lost an anti-charter lawsuit and Mayor de Blasio defended controversial school-sharing plans approved under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

A typical student in Beverly Hills did worse on the PISA test than the average of all students in Canada. And economically disadvantaged students here did worse, often far worse, than poor kids in many other countries.